By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 4, 2000; Page A26

MOSCOW, Feb. 3—The Russian government said today it has exchanged a Radio Liberty journalist who was under military detention in Chechnya for two Russian soldiers held captive by Chechen rebel forces.

The surprise announcement deepened apprehension in the Russian and international journalistic community about the fate of Andrei Babitsky, 35, a Russian citizen who was covering the Chechen war for the U.S.-financed radio network.

Babitsky's reports criticizing the Russian military irritated Moscow authorities, and Radio Liberty expressed concern that he had not been exchanged but might actually be dead.

"There is no proof he is alive, and there are too many instances of misinformation and disinformation by the Russians to think he is alive," Radio Liberty President Thomas A. Dine said in a telephone interview from the network's Prague headquarters.

However, a spokesman for the Russian government said it had videotape of Babitsky being exchanged. Babitsky has not contacted his family or the radio station since Jan. 15, the day before network officials believe he was arrested by the Russian military.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to acting President Vladimir Putin on media coverage of the Chechen war, said a rebel field commander proposed the swap, calling Babitsky "our friend, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with us defending the Chechen people." Yastrzhembsky said Babitsky agreed to the exchange, asserting in a written statement that he wanted to free the Russian servicemen from the Chechens.

Videotaped footage of the trade will be shown to the media, Yastrzhembsky said. He added that government authorities are no longer responsible for what happens to the correspondent.

The episode is the most dramatic example of the dangers and difficulties confronting correspondents covering the nearly five-month-old conflict in the separatist southern region. Because the Russian government has severely restricted access to combat zones, most reporters have the choice of trying to sneak into Chechnya without credentials and risking arrest or giving up any hope of gaining first-hand information about the war.

Babitsky last called Radio Liberty's Moscow bureau on Jan. 15, saying he was leaving Grozny, the bombed-out Chechen capital, and would not be in touch for several days. On Jan. 28, the Russian Interior Ministry said Babitsky had been detained on grounds that he lacked credentials.

Russia's top prosecutor said later that Babitsky was being held on suspicion of associating with illegal armed units, while at a news conference this week Yastrzhembsky implied that the reporter had been helping the Chechen rebels.

Jeff Trimble, head of Radio Liberty's Moscow bureau, said he was shocked by the announcement that Babitsky had been traded for the Russian soldiers. Like many war correspondents, he said, Babitsky was "a little wild" but would have agreed to such a deal only under extreme duress--"if this is what happened."

Babitsky's wife, Lyudmila, said in a television interview that if her husband signed an agreement approving the trade, "why did they not allow him to make a phone call home?"